Robin Wells, author of new historical romance The French War Bride, joins HEA to recommend some of her favorite novels that revolve around forbidden love.

Robin: Many works of fiction contain some elements of “forbidden love” that raise the stakes for the characters and add tension to the plot. My new novel, The French War Bride, has several. Set during WWII, the storyline includes French women involved with German soldiers, a romance between people of different religious faiths, and a couple who can’t marry because they posed as brother and sister in order to falsify papers.

The main forbidden romance, however, is between the hero, U.S. Army doctor Jack O’Connor, and the heroine, native Parisian Amelie Michaud. Jack is engaged to a woman back home in Wedding Tree, Louisiana, but Amelie tricks him into marrying her so that she can bypass immigration quotas and enter the U.S. as a war bride.

Here are five novels by some of my favorite authors that also have elements of forbidden love:

We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg

It’s pretty forbidden to take a woman out of an iron lung for romantic purposes — or is it? Paige Dunn is paralyzed from polio; she can’t move, but she claims she can “feel everything.” She can “frog breathe” without her respirator for short periods of time, and she’s fallen hard for hardware salesman Dell Hanson. Set in Mississippi in 1964 and told through the point of view of Paige’s 13-year-old daughter, this tender book touches on other “forbidden” themes of the era such as integration in the South and the rights of the physically disabled.

Necessary Lies by Dianne Chamberlain

Set in North Carolina in 1960, this book features a “forbidden love” between Henry Allen, the son of a tobacco farm owner, and Ivy Hart, the granddaughter of the farm tenant. In addition to being socially and economically “inferior,” Ivy has epilepsy and a sister with mental illness. When Ivy becomes pregnant, the state’s Eugenics Program applies pressure for Ivy to undergo an unwanted sterilization. This haunting story highlights prejudice against the impoverished and the inherent dangers of misguided legislation.

The Hypnotist’s Love Story by Liane Moriarty

Stalking the man you love — especially after he breaks up with you and begins dating someone else — is certainly forbidden behavior. Saskia can’t seem to help it; she needs to stay connected to Patrick and his son, Jack, in order to feel alive, even after Patrick becomes engaged to hypnotherapist Ellen O’Farrell. In fact, she uses a fake name to become one of Ellen’s clients. All of their worlds collide when Ellen and Patrick awaken to find Saskia standing in their bedroom, holding an ultrasound photo of their unborn baby — and Patrick’s outrage boils over.

The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler

Hanging out with a dead spouse is certainly forbidden behavior — at least, it is if you don’t want everyone to think you’re crazy. In this poignant novel, Aaron starts to be visited by his late wife Dorothy several months after she’s killed by a tree crashing on their house. At first he thinks other people can see her, too, but then he realizes he’s all alone in this. He works at his family’s vanity publishing business, turning out “Beginner’s Guide” titles for various subjects. As he rebuilds the house and his life, Aaron realizes that Dorothy’s imagined presence is his way of learning to let go — his own personal Beginner’s Guide to losing someone he loves.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

The forbidden love in this book is a triple play: the off-limits nature of employer-employee relationships, falling for someone intent on committing suicide, and a woman who leaves her severely injured boyfriend for his best friend. That’s not counting the heroine falling in love with a paraplegic. which some might consider taboo, as well. The plot — Louisa is hired to help care for Will, who was paralyzed from the waist down in a motorcycle accident two years earlier, and tries to convince him that life is worth living — sounds maudlin and predictable, but Jojo Moyes has written a novel that sparkles with humor, originality, warmth and insight. In this book, forbidden love breaks all the chains, leaving readers teary-eyed and smiling.

About The French War Bride:

At her assisted living center in Wedding Tree, Louisiana, ninety-three-year-old Amélie O’Connor is in the habit of leaving her door open for friends. One day she receives an unexpected visitor—Kat Thompson, the ex-fiancée of her late husband, Jack. Kat and Jack were high school sweethearts who planned to marry when Jack returned from France after World War II. But in a cruel twist of fate, their plans were irrevocably derailed when a desperate French girl overheard an American officer’s confession in a Parisian church…

Now Kat wants to know the truth behind a story that’s haunted her whole life. Finding out how Amélie stole Jack’s heart will—she thinks—finally bring her peace. As Amélie recalls the dark days of the Nazi occupation of Paris, The French War Bride reveals how history shapes the courses of our lives…for better or for worse..